Notes from the Jesuit Center: Lamps and Becoming Still and Realizing It Was Time to Acknowledege God

lamp at the Jesuit Center in Wernersville by Wayne Stratz

 The first night works like this: arrive before dinner with plenty of time to unpack and set up art studio in my room. When I entered the Jesuit Center, a Jesuit looked at me and said, "The artist is here."

Dinner, you can talk; and in the process I met a female Episcopalian priest from Maryland. 22 meals later I would meet a female Episcopalian priest from New York. Anyway, a meeting with your spiritual director ensues and times for direction are handed out. Most times I take an early in the morning time, but it felt right to take the mid-afternoon time. It proved to be wise as I really liked having my mornings free to be silent.  

lamp at the Jesuit Center in Wernersville by Wayne Stratz

We were given one verse to read, if moved to do so. Psalm 46:10

lamp at the Jesuit Center in Wernersville by Wayne Stratz

But first, all thirty plus of us would gather to begin our retreat together. It is a chance to share a concern with the others. Having read an article on mass extinctions and news reports on the Pope's call for caring for the planet; I put out a prayer for our planet.

lamp at the Jesuit Center in Wernersville by Wayne Stratz

I know Psalm 46:10 ... “Be still, and know that I am God..."

But that night in the silence, as lamps illuminated quiet hallways, my Bible did not read "know."

Instead, the word, acknowledge was there. I thought, "hmmm, that is a bit different from know." My retreat had been set in motion. I sat down and drew Margaret a card.

...

a week of poetic feet selfies ~~ It Wasn't The Wind by Linda Allardt

It Wasn't a The Wind by Linda Allardt Memorial Art Gallery Poet Walk

It Wasn’t The Wind

nor chasing squirrels

that brought the snow

down from the trees, but sun

before the clouds moved in.

I think of sails,

thin membranes spread

in the solar wind

Such far travel

before so slight a push,

always away from the sun

in slow acceleration, its course

an imperceptible bent past planets,

micro-impacts, the turbulence

where light meets light

between paired stars.

Stretched wide to the sun,

how far I find myself from anchor.

Linda Allardt, "It Wasn't the Wind" from Accused of Widsom (Foothills Publishing, 2004).

Something New: Celebrating our Boxwood by poem and photo

everything depends upon
sunlight

streaming through dead
leaves

with the blue
sky

behind the orange
glow

I love celebrating our garden, but the Boxwood that divides our front yard from our neighbor to the east never has been the highlight, however did something special today. And after it called out to me for the second time, I said, "OK" and got the camera.

Wordless Wednesday: entering the 4th dimension

Mystical Mondays ~ Darkness causes a deep ache

Translations by Daniel Ladinsky

Here is to the light of God...

Otherwise The Darkness

I 
have a cause.
We need those don't we?
Otherwise the darkness and the cold gets in
and everything starts to ache.


My Soul has a purpose
to love;


if I
do not fulfill
my heart's vocation
I suffer.

Meister Eckhart

L is for Light Out of Darkness

Strange day at work. Something was happening that made many people think I should be happy, and maybe I could have been happy about it, but I was more on the bitter side of things. Then a student asked, "Why are we bothering to do this?" and hope emerged, "Because maybe in the future we will be ..." It was a moment of light that lifted me up a bit.

******

In 1801 Thomas Young theorized that humans could not see all the wavelengths of light. He was right. There are animals that can see what we can't, but we can see more than most mammals, which as a group lost color vision--- don't use it, you will lose it--- because they were nocturnal. But a mutation gave us the chance to emerge from darkness, and a primate took it and made a run for it.

******

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12).

*******

In 1993 Shirley Horn released a CD called Light Out of Darkness. Can you imagine a better title to a tribute to Ray Charles? Can you imagine Ray Charles singing with a frog?

Science Mondays--- of light and excited electrons

I am hoping that my students will soon be able to explain how scientists have the nerve to tell us what elements are located in distant stars.

Without checking my sources... let me tell it this way.

Do you remember those energy levels that electrons like to hang out in while orbiting the nucleus, well if you hit their being with a boost of energy such as electricity or heat, an electron will grab hold of that energy and take a trip to a higher energy level. Think of a glowing rod of iron being removed from a furnace. But hey excited, while it is a hoot, doesn't tend to be a stable state for humans or electrons and the electron falls back down to a normal state of being. OK, think back to a time you felt really excited, are you now glad your heart has plummeted back to a normal state of being.

Well each element has their unique electron at the upper most level and I've been told that when electrons plummet light is emitted. Yes, excited electrons are quite busy in places like bulbs and suns and molten stuff.

So you take your handy spectroscope and check and point it at that light source and you can see the fingerprints each element has placed in the creation of light. OK, so imagine many things happen that get you excited all at once, since each is triggering you slightly differently we could see the unique aspects of each when we divide your excited self into its components.

OK, maybe this will help...




and that is how the scientists believe Green Pea Galaxies are metal-poor.

and that takes us just one Doppler effect from understanding why scientists claim we live in a not so static universe and we will be hanging out with a dude named Hubble in 1929 to get that point across.

Science Mondays---- trusting one's data

Last Monday I wrote about using NASA's cosmic times curriculum for 1919. This morning I finsihed 1919 then took a side route away from what is next... 1929. Reading up on Red Shift made it clear to me that I better teach a unit on electromagnetic radiation (light) before moving on to Hubble's findings.

Today we discussed Maxwell, who came up with equations to study how magnetism and electricity can induce each other (think coal, nuclear, hydro energy spinning huge magnets surrounded by copper wires fueling our life style).

Anyway, Maxwell's equations (see photo above) found that when one of the fields induces the other, then waves traveling at the speed of light would be created. It took him a moment or two or three before he realized that he had redefined light as electromagnetic radiation.

Last Friday in class, we spoke of Einstein and how he did not trust his data and that later he called it his greatest blunder... which led to a discussion of what we consider our greatest blunder will likely change as we get older unless we do a great blunder early on in our years.

Anyway, when Einstein plugged numbers in his Theory of General Relativity it told him the universe was far from static. But he could not wrap his mind about a universe that was growing or shrinking, so he did what any good scientist would do... add a constant to keep reality and the equation balanced. By 1929 Hubble will provide evidence for an expanding universe, but Einstein will still have some doubts. Guess he wasn't quite up to facing that blunder yet.

How are your self doubts doing these days? Beginning of school years can always make me wonder if I am capable of getting all required tasks completed ... I get to what has to be gotten and go from there.


and so much depends upon Henrietta Leavitt...